‘Like a Bad Dream’: In New Orleans, Witnesses Are Going to Jail Instead of Perpetrators

But since 2010, Orleans District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro has sought more than 150 such warrants to arrest witnesses, including a significant number of victims, according to a data analysis by the Yale Law School students of the legal scholar James Forman Jr. that was shared with In Justice Today.
A 19-year-old victim of sex trafficking was arrested in November 2014, shortly after giving birth to her daughter. She had failed to appear at a hearing during her pregnancy because she was supposed to be on bed rest and had a doctor’s note to prove it. Even so, she was held in jail for nearly four months until she testified against the father of her child.
Another victim who was shot with a semiautomatic rifle was jailed as a material witness on a $100,000 bond in December 2016. Two victims of assault were arrested and jailed on $250,000 bond after they tried to recant their testimony against their alleged attacker.